


A Lesson In Courtesy

by Black_Hole_of_Procrastination



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Family Fluff, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 10:52:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10216400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Hole_of_Procrastination/pseuds/Black_Hole_of_Procrastination
Summary: Jon had expected trouble...just not of this sort.Written for riahchan's birthday.Some Starkling fluff featuring boy king!Rickon and co-regent!Jon and Sansa.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [riahchan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/riahchan/gifts).



Jon is in the rookery when word reaches him.

_“The king has been injured.”_

He does not wait to hear more from the skinny lad that has been sent to find him, and all but sprints down the tower stairs into the keep proper, roughly jostling past servants and guardsman in his way.

A coldness grips at his heart, far worse than anything he faced at the Wall.

This is what he has feared since the moment Wyman Manderly had produced Rickon from out of nowhere, hale and whole, after the dust had settled from the siege on the Boltons.

Surely the Gods would not be so cruel as to separate them when they had only just found one another again?

Jon skids to a halt in front of the Lord’s Chamber and throws open the door without knocking. He is not sure what to make of the sight that greets him.

It's Sam he notices first. The maester stands fretfully by the hearth, his hands tucked within the great sleeves of his grey robes.

The king is seated nearby being tended. Jon runs an appraising eye over Rickon, anxiously seeking out any sign of hurt, but aside from looking slightly ruffled and a small cut at his temple he seems no worse for wear.

Jon sags with relief. It is only then, when he is sure Rickon is without grievous injury, he notices that it is not Osha or even one of the serving girls knelt on the rushes, dabbing clean Rickon’s cut, but Sansa herself.

“What has happened here?”

Jon’s gaze flits from the maester to his king and lady cousin. Sam hesitates. Rickon scowls and looks stubbornly down at the floor. Sansa remains about her work, her back to Jon, as if he had not spoken at all.

“His grace had a,” Sam pauses considering his words. “…a disagreement with young Wyle Stout–”

“He attacked an unarmed Wyle Stout in the godswood,” Sansa corrects, her voice cutting over the maester’s.

Jon frowns.

They had expected something of this sort when their bannerman began arriving for the festival marking the start of spring.

There was too much lingering strife between their vassals. Too many who had suffered in the wars in the South. Too many who had profited under the Boltons and could be not be trusted (House Stout among them).

Jon had taken care in drilling Winterfell’s men-at-arms in the weeks leading up to the festival, warning them to anticipate possible unrest. He had thought discord might come from between the Umbers and Thenns, as peace had not put a stop to disputes in The Gift. Or perhaps more disagreement over the rightful holders of the Hornwood lands.

He never thought Rickon might be the one to instigate trouble.

Jon looks to Sam. “And is the Stout lad alright?”

“A broken arm and some stitches, but he will mend well.”

Jon doesn’t miss the satisfied little grin that breaks over Rickon’s face.

“This is not a laughing matter,” Sansa scolds. “You might have caused that boy serious harm.”

“Good.”

“He is your bannerman!” Sansa rocks back on her heels, her hands hands on her hips and her face pinched with disapproval. “It is unseemly for a king to brawl with his men.”

Jon fights the urge to grin at the petulant set of Rickon’s jaw that reminds him so much of Arya, and prepares to voice his support of Sansa’s upbraiding, when Rickon says something that shakes his world to it’s core.

“But Sansa, he called you a Lannister whor—”

“I know what he said!” Sansa interrupts sharply. “But that does not give you leave to behave like a beast.”

Fury courses through Jon, hot as wildfire, once Rickon’s words take root. His fists clench at his sides, and he battles the urge to seek out this little Wyle Stout shite and punch his teeth into the back of his skull.

He has little care for what they may call him. Bastard. Deserter. Traitor. _Targaryen_. It matters not. But to speak such foul things of Sansa…

“A knight should always defend his lady’s honor,” Rickon mutters sullenly, his feet kicking at he legs of his chair. “That is how it is in the songs.”

“Hush now and be still,” Sansa admonishes, but there is less bite to it.

For a moment all is quiet. Sansa reaches for a pot of salve and begins dabbing it gently over Rickon’s temple. She works carefully, her fingers as deft with this task as they are with her needle or when scribbling in the keep’s ledger’s.

“Sansa?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you very cross with me?” The little king is staring at her with wide, injured eyes. It’s not quite contrition, but it has Sansa reaching to cup his chin gently in her hand.

“No, sweetling.” She presses kiss to the crown of Rickon’s head. “Now off with you. Go see what the kitchens have to spare for Shaggydog’s supper, hm?”

Rickon nods and scurries past Jon out the door.

“And I shall go check on Wyle again,” Sam excuses himself with an awkward bow before following after his charge, leaving Jon alone with Sansa.

Jon tries to look at her, but her face is half hidden by the curtain of her hair. He doubts her expression reveals much. She has a talent for concealing things, this woman who rode out from the Vale with his sister’s face and a spine of steel.

Many see her guardedness as a lack of feeling, but Jon knows better. For all the suffering she has endured in this life, she still has a tender heart. Jon means for her to keep it.

“Don’t Jon,” she warns, busying herself with setting the shallow basin of water and rags she used to clean Rickon’s cut onto a low table.

“I didn’t said anything.”

“You didn’t have to,” Sansa wipes her hands dry on a clean linen.

She still will not look at him. Jon thinks perhaps that is a mercy. If she did, he is not certain he could stop himself from trying to take her in his arms to comfort her or some other foolish, besotted notion that would certainly ruin the happy partnership they’ve built since the war’s end.

“We will need to apologize to Lord Stout.”

“Apologize?” Jon sputters, his anger returning with full force. “His son struck his king!”

“In self-defense! We cannot afford to alienate our bannermen, Jon. Besides, Wyle is but a boy.”

Jon scoffs.

“Yes, and I can guess where he learned to repeat such talk.”

If there is any apologizing to be done, it should be from Lord Stout (and perhaps his elder sons, Jon suspects). It is they who have truly done the hurting.

“Even so,” Sansa sighs. “I have been called far worse things. And what did he say that was not true?”

She meets his eyes at last, and Jon hates the resignation he sees there.

Jon is not so naive to think such things are not whispered about Sansa in the North, but for them to infect their home, for Sansa to believe them herself, he cannot bear it.

He wants to shield from everything ugly in this world. He wants to cut down everyone who has ever hurt her. He _wants…_

“I must speak with the cooks before the feast,” she says, giving Jon a weary smile and disappearing in a flurry of skirts before Jon can utter a word.

That evening in the hall, Jon is gratified when he looks down at one of the lower tables and sees that young Wyle seems to have had the worst of the fight. Sam has splinted one of the boy’s arms and his nose is mottled a color that most definitely suggests it’s been broken and reset.

The lad is near twelve or thirteen by Jon’s estimation and easily twice Rickon’s size. Hardly a fair fight. Something like paternal pride stirs in Jon.

The feeling disappears the minute Jon is forced to stand at Sansa’s side as she apologizes to an insufferably smug Lord Harwood Stout. Jon does not say a word but he also does not seize the lord up by the scruff as he wishes to, so Sansa cannot be too cross with him.

Jon overhears the Blackfish mutter something about a “traitorous one-armed shite” when he passes him on his way back to his seat. Jon couldn’t have put it better himself.

His mood is darkened for the rest of the meal. Lady Thenn, who is seated to his left, tries to draw him into conversation but soon gives up in favor of trading barbs in the Old Tongue with her husband about the assembled lords.

When Sansa takes her leave of the hall, Jon is quick to rise from his seat and offers to escort her. If she notices the way he nearly trips over his own chair in his haste to reach her, she kind enough not to tease him for it.

They make the journey to the family wing, Sansa’s hand light on the crook of Jon’s arm as she chats about the feast. Jon tries to listen but his mind is too anxious with what he must do.

Jon halts them just outside the door to her chamber.

He can feel Sansa watching him as he stares at the flagstones, searching for the proper words, the words he should have said that afternoon. Sansa is growing restless beside him, and so he forces himself to look at her and speaks.

“You are wrong, Sansa. What-what he said, it is not true. It never could be.”

Sansa blinks at him a moment.

Jon sees tears gather in the corners of her eyes and panic begins to well up in him. _Idiot! He didn’t mean for her to cry!_

He is fretting over the mess he’s wrought when suddenly, through the tears, a shy but genuine smile creeps over Sansa’s face.

“Thank you, Jon.”

She takes his scarred hand in hers and rises on her toes to brush her lips over the skin just above his whiskers.

Jon feels his face grow hot, both from her thanks and the gentle press of her lips to his cheek. Somehow he has managed to say the right thing for once.

He lingers a minute longer, his hand still enclosed in Sansa’s, before murmuring a quiet goodnight and leaving Sansa at her door.

He makes for his own rooms feeling lighter. He imagines he will feel even better after teaching Lord Stout’s elder sons a lesson on courtesy in the till yard on the morrow.


End file.
